Episode 427: 2026 Hyundai Kona, 2026 Lexus NX 350h F Sport

Hello, and welcome to the unnamed automotive podcast.

My name is Sammy Hajesad, and with me as always is my good friend and fellow automotive journalist,

Benjamin Hunting.

Say hi to the people, Ben.

Greetings, human listeners.

Greetings to everyone.

If this is the first time you're listening to our podcast, thank you for trying something

new.

I will reiterate, Ben and I are a pair of automotive journalists, but more important

than any of that is the fact that we're very good friends, right, Ben?

Sammy, recently another friend of mine, who's not you, introduced me to a website that threatens

to bankrupt me.

Who is this friend and what is this website?

Her name is Katie, and the website is bookdepot.ca, and this is not sponsored content.

No, I have never been hearing about Book Depot nonstop.

So she posted these unboxing videos of these books she'd ordered on Instagram and I

messaged her, and she's like, you got to check it out.

The prices are crazy.

I got like seven books for 50 bucks and I am, I have a huge book habit.

It's probably the thing I spend, no, I mean, obviously I spend the most money on cars, but

outside of cars, it's probably why I spend most of my disposable income on.

So I go to the site and it's essentially overstock books, I am assuming.

And everything is like seven to $10.

They've got like a dot on them or something.

That's what one of my friends says.

A dot?

I don't know what that means.

Like a weird dot on them.

In any case, like normally the list price for these books is anywhere between like $25

and $50.

And I currently have 29 books in my cart, which is too many books, because I'm doing, I'm

doing some holiday shopping, I guess, even though I'm very minimal about that kind of

thing, because I prefer to, I prefer to spend time with my family rather than do the whole

consumerist thing.

But in any case, books are an exception to that.

Anyway, I don't know why I'm telling you this, it's just, it's, I know that

once we're done recording this show, I'm going to go back to the website and I'm going to

add more books to my, my cart and then it's going to be a staggeringly huge amount of money

that I will have to pay, but it's small compared to the book return I'm getting.

That's true.

And it's important to tell people about your other friends and what you're doing before

and after the recording so they can fill their like imagination with what's going

on in your life.

Absolutely no one thinks, as soon as this podcast is over, no one thinks about

me. So I wonder what Ben did after the recording or I wonder what Ben is doing

before the recording.

It's like when you turn off the TV, the people that live in the TV disappear and

you don't think about them.

It's the same thing with podcasts.

This week, we've got a couple of cars to talk about.

Do you want to plug some publications before we talk about some cars?

Pick a number from one to three and I'll tell you a publication.

Three, two.

Motor Trend.

There we go.

We did it.

And for me, you can go to driving.ca.

You can find my recent stories there.

Ben, I'm going to start this week's episode off with a review of the 2026

Hyundai Kona.

And I know our listeners probably like, here we go again, another Kona.

But Sammy, believe it or not.

Haven't we talked about the Kona like three times in the last two years?

Yeah, actually, we've been talking mostly about the electric version of the

car. Yeah, I think so.

That that was going to be my point.

It's like, I think this time we're doing something actually different.

But this time I've looked around back on the Kona that I'm testing,

and it has a tailpipe, which means it's a gas powered model.

Or it means some neighborhood kids went to the dollar store and bought

a trick exhaust pipe and taped it to your car as like a practical joke.

Possibly the funniest practical joke in the history of practical jokes.

They could have ruined my entire career.

Now I'm going to do this whole story about a gas powered electric.

Let alone when you try to fill it with gas and just the interior,

they'll never get that smell out.

I think the easier way to fake it would be to go and get

metallic paint and dip a paper, a paper towel tube, a paper towel roll in it.

No, that's like way higher effort than just buying an off the shelf

fake fake. That's expensive, man.

It's not that expensive.

It's very reasonable that the industry is in flux.

The fake tailpipe industry is in flux.

They're doing their best.

There's a lot of supplier changes right now.

Yeah, huge changes in that industry.

Anyways, I'm driving the Hyundai Kona.

I'm going to be honest with you.

Not a lot has changed with the Hyundai Kona

since it was refreshed for the 2024 model year.

But that isn't to say that there's not a lot to talk about,

mainly because there's a lot of there's a lot of cars in this

in this whole segment.

And next week, we'll be talking about one of the potential

competitors for the Kona.

In those toilet, those.

Sorry. Wow.

But I want to stick to the Kona right now,

which is everyone's just turning off

because they want to wait for next week's kicks.

I know, I know.

This is what happens every time you bring up the kicks.

Our download numbers plummet.

Everyone just waiting it out for kicks.

Well, let me be clear.

The the Kona is a

it's a pretty interesting car in the fact that you can get

so many different models of it and its price range, I think, varies.

A lot.

You can get a twenty five thousand dollar version of the car

and you can get a like thirty five thousand dollar version of the car.

That's the U.S. Yeah, that's U.S.

In Canada, it's it's actually a pretty I think it's a tighter spread

or a wider spread starting at twenty seven or around twenty nine

with freight and PDI to about forty thousand.

When you get the end, they call it the end line with ultimate

the ultimate package in the U.S.

It's known as the limited.

I've gotten all will drive one with there's no trim.

There's no extra packages here, so it's just a thirty six thousand dollar car.

I have a question. Hit me.

Why is limited such a popular trim level as a word?

And I don't even mean just now, like on the modern landscape,

it feels like limited has been around forever. Yeah, I don't understand why.

Like is the idea that it's at one point people thought it actually

meant limited production? Is that the goal of it?

Yeah, a thing with like select, right?

Like it's like, but we know select is fake

and we know limited is not limited.

So like the next term is going to be exclusive.

Why does it persist?

No, I feel like exclusive is the kind of trim you get on like a German luxury

car where they just make up terms and it doesn't really matter.

And that's just how their branding works. That's fine.

But limited is like the kind of you see it on every car,

like a grand Cherokee to like a bruise.

I think used to have limited for Crown Victoria's, you know,

like it's it's just been everywhere and I don't get it.

Like it's the the the promise of it being limited is so obviously fake

that you think that they would have stopped using it.

I know, I think that's fair.

I think that's a really appropriate point.

I don't know what who decides which trim names make a huge difference

because we also see like S and S E like the Kona, for example,

the base model is called the S E and other cars have the S trim

as their entry level vehicle.

Sport, sport, extra, sport, extra, limited.

Yeah, I don't know what makes S such an important.

I think S is like supposed to be sporty.

That's the only thing I can think of.

But what it's on the basic, both basic model.

Oh, it's divorced from reality.

But I just think that that's what it's supposed to be.

But also, I mean, Nissan Versa S, I rest my case. Exactly.

But the other thing about limited is as a word, technically,

it might mean that that vehicle is limited in its appeal,

its functionality, its features.

That never seems to occur to anybody on the brand example.

Yeah, I guess so.

Anyways, this this limited model I have is different

from the other versions of the Kona, mainly because it's

it features a turbocharged 1.6 liter four cylinder engine

that makes 190 horsepower, 195 pound feet of torque.

I'm going to bring this up because as far as I can tell,

there might not be another N version of the Kona, the Kona right now.

I think Kona N is done.

Yeah, which is a shame.

I mean, I think the Kona N was pretty cool, but now it's gone.

So now we've got the most powerful version of the Kona you can get.

It has 190 horsepower.

The model I have has all wheel drive, something really important

to mention with the Kona is that unlike while base models use a CVT,

the top trims with these turbocharged engine get a eight speed automatic.

And overall, this car is really, really good to drive.

I would call it super mainstream feeling, even with the turbocharged engine.

And and I mean, in Canada, this is called the N line.

So I think they're trying to make to trying to make it feel or seem

like a more sportier car.

It doesn't really feel sporty, but it is like a good compact.

It's really responsive.

And I don't know, I guess in some ways

you might be expecting something closer to like a Honda Civic Si.

This isn't like that at all.

I don't think why would someone have that expectation?

Because to me, I think the Alantra, the Alantra sport or N line,

I don't know what they're called now and what trim level in which market

does feel closer to a Civic Si without the manual.

But you're saying that the Kona would feel like a Civic Si.

Yeah, no, it doesn't translate up to the Kona.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah. And I don't think anyone shopping for a Kona is looking at a Civic.

Like, I think that if you would, you would probably be more looking

at an HRV or something.

Yeah, please don't mention the HRV again.

HRV, HRV. I don't want you to do that.

This car is significantly, I will say this car is significantly better

than a Honda HRV.

I cannot stand the Honda HRV.

I had the accurate version of it a short while ago

and it still felt like an HRV at times, just with more power.

The Kona is much more responsive.

It doesn't have that.

I think one of the major parts here is that CVT.

There is no CVT in this turbocharged model.

So as a result, there's none of that like drone or groan

that you get from a lot of entry level cars that feature a CVT.

And so I guess it feels I guess it feels better, you know,

like it gives off a better, more premium feel with

with a relatively affordable car.

So what did you like the most about this car?

I mean, it's been on the market for a couple of years past the refresh.

You said this is a very competitive segment.

Is there anything that stands out that would send people towards?

Because I feel like most of the hype about the code in these days

is around the EV. Yeah, obviously, we've driven it a lot.

Yeah, we we like it.

It has some issues, most of them pricing related.

But for the gas powered version, I mean,

is it stuff about this model that makes you recommended over other

I mean, excluding the HRV over other models?

Yeah, let's talk about this segment altogether.

I think the Crosstrak is one of the is one of the ideal choices

if fuel efficiency and space are on your

are like must have or priorities on your list.

And it and it comes with standard all wheel drive.

The Kona does not.

So that's one of the that's always been one of the top choices

in that segment for me.

I'm not a huge lover of the Corolla Cross or the HRV.

The kicks used to be something else.

We'll talk about that next week.

And I think the Kona is is a really solid

like second choice to the or like runner up to the Subaru.

So what's the key aversion of the Kona?

Isn't it the Celtos?

Do we still have a Celtos?

I think so, because we lost the didn't we lose the

there's another Hyundai that's like below the venue.

And that's gone, I think.

I believe so.

So I was wondering if the Celtos was going to meet a similar fate.

I'm not sure.

No, the venue apparently is still being sold in the U.S.

Twenty thousand five five fifty.

Twenty thousand.

Yes, how much it is.

That's amazing.

I thought that I thought was a little bit more expensive than that.

We used to have sub twenty thousand dollar cars.

But the only one is the version.

Yeah, now we've got to be excited with the venue.

That's twenty thousand five.

You know, the venue I've never driven twenty two with with

I think with freight and delivery.

Or have you ever driven one?

Which a venue?

Yes, I've never driven one.

I will tell you the thing that happened to me

with the venue is that I tried to close it

using the hand that I tried to close the trunk

using the handle inside the trunk.

Do you know what I mean?

There's like a little like a grip thing.

And the door and the like panel fell off.

It was not fastened into it.

It was not like snapped into its place.

So the the venue is one of my white whales.

Like the Genesis.

I think you're OK.

You're OK not driving it.

It's just a car I've never been able to book for such a strange car to have.

I mean, this is a place of the accent.

I think it looks kind of good, though.

It looks great.

I saw one today out on the road and I was like,

this is what a Kia Soul could have looked like, but didn't.

You know, it's like a smaller area.

The soul is wonderful.

I know, but I'm just saying like the venue is like a different take on the soul,

a different take on like the Nissan Cube,

like all these cars that are disappearing from the market.

These like upright, wagon-esque cars that we don't have anymore.

Psyon XB, yeah, you know, the Cube, the Cube brand, the element.

Elements were so important to everything.

I think that I recently wrote an article for Auto Trader.

I'm not sure it was been published yet where I was talking about

vehicle names that should be revived now that that's what we're doing.

And I thought that Honda should bring the element back as an entry level off-roader.

But they'd have to call it the element trail sport.

Yeah, or the L sport. Shout out to L.

Anyways, yeah, the alternative to the Kona would be the Celtos.

I don't love the Celtos.

I don't know what it is about it.

It's always felt a little bit tinnier, like tinny, like unrefined compared to the Kona.

Well, it's because we were driving the limited, limited potentially.

I will say what what are the trim levels of the?

Yeah, see that the S obviously is the mid trim model.

The SX is the top trim.

Kona, Kia, Kia Celtos.

X is like the S of the the S world, right?

Like S and X. You could put that anywhere.

Yeah, and T, but T is usually for turbo, but X means nothing.

And S means nothing on the road.

And you get L, L is in cases longer, right?

Yeah, you get that extended wheelbase.

So this is like the familiar faces you see.

Anyways, one of the things that I really appreciate about the the Kona

is that it it does not feel super compact inside.

It has no issue accommodating a rear facing car seat in my life so far.

And I think that it has really good cargo room as well.

Let me give you the official numbers of that,

because I'm sure you'll want to know exactly how much cargo room it has.

To twenty five twenty five point five cubic feet

with the seats up and sixty three point seven with them down.

I really appreciate that.

The other thing that I want to point out is that Hyundai has moved

the gear selector from between the seats to a steering mounted

like column. It's this weird like boxy shifter

that is found on all of their cars.

Now, I think they debuted on the Ionic.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

There's one that kind of sticks out and is hidden behind the steering wheel.

Yes, I find that that is my least favorite part of the Ionic

because you can't really see what you're doing.

You can't see the position of the shifter.

It's like other shifters that are on the column.

Usually there is a it's linked to something on the gauge cluster.

And so you move it through a plane of motion

and it shows you the gear that you're selecting.

But from what I remember, the one on the Ionic,

you twist a little thing at the end, right? Yeah.

And that changes your gear,

but you can't really see what you're twisting.

No, you have to pay attention to the gauge cluster.

I'm going to tell you my mom visited last night

and my parents just bought a Hyundai Ionic 5

and my mom doesn't drive it a lot, a lot.

But she, you know, she drove it over

and she was struggling to get the car in reverse.

And I had and she was because she kept missing this this shift.

It kept going to neutral and wasn't wasn't actually reversing.

And I don't think it's a dangerous feature,

but I think it's an ergonomic misstep from Hyundai.

Yeah, I think if people are used,

I mean, people have to get used to these changing gear selectors.

I don't know. I don't I don't know if it's something you get used to.

I think it's like because of where it's positioned

and the blind spot that it's in, it's just always going to be a hassle.

Well, Hyundai likes to do this thing where where you

like your selections on certain stocks show up in the gauge cluster.

And I believe it does that for the Ionic.

So when you put it into neutral instead of drive,

it actually has like a little like rectangle

that shows up on the gauge cluster that says P and D

and it would have like an extra box around the end.

You just have to pay attention.

Same with like when you turn on the wipers or change the wiper speeds.

I actually really like that.

I guess I do what you're doing.

I guess I just don't like controls that are in a blind spot.

Like for me, it's behind a wheel is bad

or the left side of the dash between the steering wheel and the door.

Like you have to divert attention away from the road to use.

Like oftentimes that's where you'll find like fog light controls

or lighting controls in general.

Oh, man, like totally obsessed with jamming things under the vent by the

to me, the stock on the steering column is the same thing.

Yeah. And I shouldn't.

I mean, I'm not trying to discredit your just your your.

Oh, it's just my personal opinion.

I know some people they they love this stock and they would marry the stock

and they have the stock's beautiful children.

I will say that the Porsche Taycan hides its on button behind the steering wheel.

You can never and it's shifter as well behind the steering wheel.

You can never really see it, and that's always one of the weird things

when you get into one of the cars, you're like, where do I turn it on?

And yeah, kind of like, well, that's an us problem, though.

Yeah, I guess so.

That's because we're changing cars all the time.

And I often have that problem of where is the on button

or whether or not a car needs to be turned on.

And then you feel like super unprofessional because like everyone's

like, why can't he just start the car and drive away?

Isn't this isn't this his job?

What's going on?

I never get questioned about my professionalism, except for on this podcast.

That's because you only pick your cars up in the dark of night.

That's right. It's the best way to do it.

The reason I mentioned the the gear selector is that since they moved

it to the steering wheel column, it's enabled this really big storage

space between the the two seats.

I know that sounds like a really weird thing to highlight,

but this is a compact car and usually at hand storage in a compact car

is really tight and you end up like just throwing things behind you.

And you don't have to do that in this car.

Unfortunately, one of the weird things about the Kona

is that it has these spring loaded

supports for a cup holder.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, they like pop in and pop out to like grasp the cup.

Yeah, so you can push these things away and they would make a very big

basically a large rectangular space to store something like a phone

or a tablet or a bag or whatever.

But if you wanted to put a cup holder, you would press one of these buttons

and a spring loaded semi circle would fly from the side of this

this cubby to to be, you know, to represent where you would put a cup holder.

And I find it to be one of the wildest things to put in the cards.

There's no reason it should fly out like that.

Like it should have been it should be damped in a way because I don't know.

It looks kind of dangerous.

If somebody presses it by accident, if a kid presses it, I don't know.

I think that's a bit it's a bit extra.

Getting getting back to that storage space.

I think what's missed sometimes is that space is perfect if you have a purse

or a handbag and a lot of cars compact or not.

They don't have they don't take into account handbags and purses.

And like my wife, for example, in our outback, she had to get and her

cross truck before it's actually she bought a hook that she could

hang from the seat in between the seats where she could put stuff like a

little pouch and she exported that to the outback when we traded.

And can you send me is that an Amazon product that she I don't.

So for a while, she was obsessed with buying things on Timu.

She was like, she plays a lot of mobile games.

And Timu had like a mobile game where if you fed some fish and played

with the fish, you would get like deals for real.

She's very. Yeah.

And she's very deal oriented.

And so that was I'm also deal.

That was interesting for her.

And I think she ended up getting it from there.

That's that's where I think that one came. OK.

Well, I think my wife has the same issue with the with her outback.

She ends up putting it on the floor mat of the passenger seat,

which is it's OK in the summer, but in the winter, that can get kind of mucky.

She also got hooks that hook into the headrest so that in addition

to this pouch between the seats, there's two hooks on the back

where she can hang a bag and just reach back and grab it.

Oh, yeah, I can't do that because there's a big there's a cart.

There's a baby seat there.

Well, you can. I don't want.

I don't want anything that might.

But it's not a baby seat on both sides.

Not yet. I don't know.

But I don't want anything that my that my child can like find

and weaponize, which is his new favorite thing of doing.

My goodness, this kid, sometimes he gets in the in the back seat

and he complains about his shoes being on or off or something like that.

And he instead of just, you know, like taking them off

and putting them on, which I tell him, like, you can take off your shoes

if you want, he will take them and he just doesn't want to hold them

anymore or have them in his sight.

So he just flings them like, imagine you're making like a shrugging motion

with your hands and they end up hitting me in the face like in the back of the head.

I get hit with the shoes and boots.

Sammy, just drive with a helmet.

It's insane.

And then he complains to me that he can't see his shoes or his boots anymore.

And I'm like, buddy, I got it here.

Honestly, you're slacking as a father.

I know, of course.

Anyways, so those are the two things that I think the cargo space

and at hand storage in the Kona stands out to me.

Another thing that I think is really nice

is that in this top trim limited model, there are two 12.3 inch gauge clusters.

I know that you don't like the design element of having two gauge cluster, two screens.

Sorry. Is it one gauge cluster?

But does it look like one big screen across the dash?

It looks like one ginormous screen separated.

It just looks cheap.

But I think from a technology point of view, it looks pretty good.

The it's weird to see all of these unnecessary gimmicky features in a in a compact car.

So, you know, this thing also has that camera view when you turn on the signals.

Totally unnecessary because the Kona is, you know,

it's supposed to be considered a subcompact or a compact and you have to look away

from the road to look at those. Yeah, what I don't like.

Instead of, you know, just using your mirrors and glancing over your shoulder.

But it's got these it's got these features.

So that's worth pointing out.

I just don't know, you know, are we paying something?

Is it a trivial price that we have to pay for that feature?

I don't think so because it's not it's tempting to think it's just software, right?

But it's actually cameras. Yeah, there's cameras.

And I'm assuming they're mounted on the mirrors.

And if you're in a parking lot and someone takes your mirror off,

your mirror is now more expensive to replace.

Yeah, that's that's the bottom line for a lot of these safety technologies

is the sensors that are attached to them are not cheap.

This was causing issues with the F-150's blind spot monitor

that was incorporated into the taillight, I believe.

And the taillight is a is a frequently, you know, cracked or broken or damaged item.

I have a taillight story for you.

My father cracked the taillight on one of his F-150s.

And I believe it was the 2019.

And the replacement price from the factory was insane.

Like, yeah, like I want to say like five hundred dollars per taillight.

Yeah. And that was like just for the cover on the outside.

So ended up looking, he fixed it with tape for a while.

And then he I think he found a used one somewhere.

But you can get them online.

You can get like job or style replacements.

But even those are not inexpensive.

So that's just nuts, you know.

So it is just one of those things that there's so many.

There's so many like.

Features that are available in the car.

I even have like ventilated seats on mine again.

It's really, you know,

we talked about this, maybe we haven't talked about it recently,

but back in the day,

Hyundai was really known for trying to deliver as many features

that they could in their in their quote unquote, affordable cars.

And they still do that.

I think the cars have gotten a little less affordable.

I think at thirty five or thirty six ish thousand dollars.

This is not an entry level car anymore.

But I guess it relative to the average price of a new car.

Yeah, I guess it is still affordable

and they are still cramming features into it.

So I think as a result, this is what I'm trying to say is that

it's still one of the best subcompact cars you can get.

The highlights for me is the fact that you can get multiple powertrains,

not just a turbo for and a naturally aspirated for,

but front wheel drive and all wheel drive,

tons of cargo room, tons of in car storage

and a decent array of technology and comfort features.

So I do think it's among the best in the class.

One of the weird things, as we mentioned,

you talked about the Kia Seltos.

I don't think that is as good as the Kona.

I think there's something missing in that in that equation,

something to do with the.

Something to do with the refinement of the

of the vehicle, something to do with the amount of sound deadening

or just their CVT tuning that just does not

touch me the same way that the Kona does.

Is there anything else you want to say about the Kona?

No, I think I'm done with it.

And I'm really eagerly looking forward to our conversation next week

with the kicks, because the kicks, let's be clear,

the kicks used to be a really affordable car.

Now it's playing in the world of Kona's.

And I don't.

And we'll talk about what that.

Yeah, don't do next week's podcast this week. OK.

So I drove something that is not playing in the world of Kona's.

It is, but it is the same size roughly.

And that is the Lexus NX 350H F Sport.

And depending on which country you're in,

it's either the F Sport 3 or the F Sport handling all wheel drive.

Which country do you think has which name?

One of the two options, Canada and US, right?

Yeah, no, there's the Canada and Iceland.

F Sport Canada, F Bjork 3.

Yeah, F Sport 3 Canada.

Yeah, do you know there's no F Sport one, Sammy?

I only know that because you told it to be right before we started the podcast.

F Sport 2 and an F Sport 3.

And that's it.

And everything else is like limited in luxury and other things like that.

So is the limited the F Sport one?

No, I'm kidding.

As a result, the F Sport 2 is really the F Sport one,

but you don't want to be, you don't want to feel like you bought the F Sport one.

The F Sport one was just so hardcore.

They had to remove it from the market.

No, I think it's the other way around.

It's a floor 13 on an elevator.

The F Sport floor is considered unlucky.

And so they took it off to get out of the showroom.

So I had not driven this version of the NX.

I believe I have driven the plug-in.

I don't remember, but I've driven lots of other NXs, lots of gas versions.

The interesting thing about F Sport is

it's the first time it's available for the regular hybrid.

Like you used to be able to get it for the gas models.

Yeah, and then you were able to get it for the plug-in,

which has a little bit more power.

But the F Sport hybrid was always middle of the road,

more focused on efficiency than anything else.

So now F Sport comes in two different versions, at least in Canada.

In the States, it's just F Sport handling all-wheel drive.

But in reality, F Sport 2 and F Sport 3 in Canada, it just gives you options.

Like an F Sport 3 is an American F Sport with all the options.

Like that's that you just can't order individual options in Canada.

Right.

No other real differences.

The vehicle doesn't gain any power to be an F Sport.

First of all, I should be clear.

It's a compact SUV.

It's based on the same platform as the RAV4, loosely.

They have kind of the same hard points, but it has a two and a half liter

four cylinder engine, a couple of electric motors, 240 horsepower.

That's pretty decent.

But for the F Sport, what you get in the as extras,

it's really divided into two segments.

The first is the actual mechanical changes, which are few and far between.

The most interesting one is an adaptive suspension system.

So Lexus has essentially adaptive sports shocks, but they also have these

dampers at the front and rear of the vehicle that are for lateral movement.

And those are those are installed for the F Sport.

Yeah. And you also, I'm not sure.

I don't know if the regular hybrid gets these, but it has a Sport Plus

drive mode that and a sport driving mode and paddle shifters

where you can access virtual gears, quote unquote, in the CVT transmission.

Sammy, do you remember if the regular hybrid has paddle shifters?

I don't think it does.

I don't think so either.

So in any case, for me, I don't think for as what I remember,

a regular hybrid version of a Toyota Toyota's come with a CVT, an ECVT, right?

Yeah. And I don't think Toyota is one to fake its CVT gear,

you know, do those fake gear ratios on CVTs.

OK, so they do it.

They're doing it. I don't think they do those very often.

Very good. They're doing it here.

But they've jumped on board with like everyone else, I guess.

More the more interesting part of this vehicle for me,

and I'll get to the reasons why in a little bit is the styling.

I had this like really cool blue color, which was called Grecian Water,

which I think is a hilarious name for the blue.

It it looks great.

It has a different grill.

The next grill got weird recently.

It's kind of like a vertical chain link kind of thing.

And this one is more of a honeycomb.

I think it looks good.

It's got its own 20 inch rims.

It has a few other styling tweaks inside.

It has a mine had a red and black, I believe it was black,

two tone leather with F sport badges everywhere, different steering wheel.

It looks really good.

I'm surprised by how much I like the styling of this F sport.

I think it is by far the most attractive version of the Lexus.

And the first time I've ever felt like

an F sport trim has actually impacted the design of the vehicle.

Well, no, I think that in the past, the F sport has impacted in a negative way.

I think if you look at like the RX, which is the next size up at the crossover,

it gets way too busy.

Like there's too many angles on an RX already.

And then you start throwing like, I don't know, wings or whatever.

I can't remember what's on the car, but it just it gets too aggressive

for what the body shape was originally intended.

Whereas with the NX, they didn't hulk it up too much.

It just looks a little beefier.

And you also get painted fender flares instead of black fender flares.

And I think that that helps, too.

It's like more cohesive to look at.

And the inside is nice, like this interior.

This is it's a luxury vehicle, right?

But we're so used to these smaller luxury SUVs

not really passing the muster when it comes to interior interior cabin.

Like it's just like much of the switch gear reminds you of whatever

more affordable vehicle it's based on.

I did not get those vibes from the NX F sport.

It felt and it starts it.

I believe that the version I drove just under 60 grand

in the U.S. in in Canada, the price was significantly higher.

I want to say I'm looking up the number now, but I want to say it was like

yeah, it was about seventy five thousand.

The base model starts under 60 Canadian.

So that's that's a fair difference.

A couple of other things I like about the interior.

I mean, I mentioned the seats.

They look cool.

The dash has like a two tone thing going on.

The materials are nice.

It's it's presents.

Well, but we were just talking about my disdain for the dashboard

stretching rectangle of screen that we see so often these days.

And a couple of weeks ago, I was talking about the Genesis GV 70

electrified that has that feature now.

Whereas in the past, it used to have an actual binoculars.

Well, there's a binoculars in the Lexus.

It has its own separate gauge cluster.

And then there is a a infotainment screen

that is at the center of the dashboard, but it's in a frame

and it's tilted towards the driver.

And that frame also includes some buttons and controls

and touch capacitive sensors for the climate control.

So it feels like two distinct things.

And I think that that just seems more luxurious to me.

It just looks like more thought was put into the design.

It's not nearly as plain, especially when it's off.

So I like that. Interesting.

Is there is there something to talk about with the

did you get a chance to use the native system

on the infotainment screen at all?

Yeah, I use it all the time.

And how much did you enjoy instead of using

like Android Auto or Apple Car?

I primarily used Android Auto, but there were times where I didn't.

And I found that with this car,

I've complained in Toyotas in the past

where they use too much gauge cluster menus to do things

and they bury a ton of settings, especially safety settings.

I had this problem with the with the path with,

I was going to say pathfinder with the trail hunter forerunner.

Right, where there were a ton of like

cryptically composed.

Yes, like PSWK is on or off acronym

acronym for all the safety features.

Yeah, and you can't see what they are because it's on a tiny screen on the dash

instead of the larger infotainment screen for the for the Lexus NX.

There was much more information on the infotainment screen itself.

My only problem with the interacting with these features was

the Lexus uses context sensitive pads on the steering wheel.

And what that's right.

Yes. What that means is you have these little joystick

pads like you would have on a Nintendo controller.

But depending on whether you tapped the button below them once or twice,

it does different things and those things are shown on the gauge cluster.

So if you tap it once, it shows you what the controls are.

You tap it again.

It shows you how those controls are different.

So you tap it once.

Maybe you can move from one media track to another, pushing left and right.

If you tap it again, instead of doing volume or you're doing something

with your phone, it's kind of annoying because you have to look away from the road.

Like I don't want to guess at what these controls are going to do

because I don't remember what setting they're on.

Land Rover was the worst at this when they first introduced it like maybe seven years ago.

Yeah, because they're yeah, they have all these buttons

that light up differently on the on the steering wheel, which is absolutely useless.

Yeah. Yeah. So not only did you have to look away from the road,

you had to look down at your hands.

You had to look down at your hand.

You had to look down at the at the gauge cluster.

You had to try to figure out everything. Yeah.

So in any case, good cabin, decent cargo space inside,

decent passenger room in the back, although not the most passenger room

in his class, I don't think the driving experience.

So here's where I don't think F sport cuts the mustard,

the mustard, sorry.

And I feel like this has always been the case with F sport vehicles,

but I'm going to be forgiving about it with the NX because

I mentioned there's no extra power.

I mentioned that it has these the ECVT with the paddle shifters

with the fake ratios.

It's really weird to use them because if you if you're

put the transmission in sport mode, which gives you this different dash

look display and you're in sport plus driving mode,

and it looks more aggressive.

There's lots of red on the screen.

You if you floor the gas and then you it for some reason,

it puts a four on the screen. You're at fourth gear, I guess, whatever.

If you downshift, nothing happens at full throttle.

The revs say the same and the acceleration stays the same.

And then you shift back up to fourth gear and it's nothing happens again.

But if you're just driving like somewhat aggressively,

you can shift through the gears and it will change the engine speed.

So it's almost like it's situationally dependent

as to how it's going to react.

Not good. That to me is like not an interesting experience.

I will say that the engine is not thrashy at all when you floor it.

It doesn't sound all that bad, even though you're pegging a CVT,

which is often a recipe for buzziness.

But it didn't really happen in this car.

The handling, the Sport Plus mode does noticeably firm up the suspension.

You do feel like the vehicles is transmitting more bumps

through the suspension into the cabin.

Whether that translates into better handling, I don't know,

because this is not a vehicle you drive aggressively.

There's nothing about it that compels you to drive quickly.

It's really something where I appreciate how comfortable it is as a commuter

and just how confident it is.

I had it on summer or all season tires in a blizzard,

unfortunately, because we're getting weird weather thanks to climate change

that's that's made it completely impossible to predict what things

are going to be like in the fall.

And I had no problems with it.

I mean, obviously it takes longer to stop.

But in terms of handling and in terms of acceleration,

it was fine. It handled slippery conditions very well.

I was impressed by how it drove, but it was not sporty.

So you're in this situation where I think the only real reason

to buy the F Sport trim is for the looks and you're getting this extra

mechanical stuff that doesn't really do anything.

I don't know if that's worth it to you.

You'll have to decide based on your payment,

like based on how comfortable you are paying the rest of it,

because it's a lot of money in Canada.

It's like 14 grand over base.

So this is the question I'm going to have.

Is there still a place for the entry level like

should this replace the entry level like gas powered version of the

No, I don't think so, because I think that they do

because that's what they're doing with the RAV4 and on the Toyota side.

There's not going to be a gas powered version.

They're going to be all the way from what I understand.

I don't have the numbers in front of me.

The gas powered index is considerably more powerful.

So if you want to have a vehicle that competes against the X3 or whatever,

you're going to have to have that powerful turbocharged gas version.

It just has to be there.

Otherwise, you end up with the idea.

Remember when Lexus was going to be the hybrid brand

and everything was going to be hybrid and that was their thing

that that was distinctive for them for a while.

And then every other car company offered hybrids,

but like in addition to gas models.

And I think Lexus realized that it had to have both.

It couldn't just be it's like when Volvo was the safety brand

and then everyone else became the safety brand

and they couldn't use that as a distinction anymore. Right. Yes.

But I will say I do think that most people who are buying

the NX hybrid are doing it for the fuel mileage.

They're getting it because they want the fuel much.

It's rated at 40 miles per gallon in combined driving.

I saw 31 in very cold weather.

That's not bad at all.

You know, so like the mileage is there.

My two biggest complaints about the vehicle

are related to its adaptive cruise control. No way. OK.

I had some weird stuff happen.

Do you think it has a lot to do with the weather or something like that?

No, no, no. Well, one of them had to deal with the weather

and one of them very much did not.

The scarier one had nothing to do with the weather.

And that was I was in bumper to bumper traffic with adaptive cruise on.

It had been on for a while and I was crawling through traffic.

And the vehicle suddenly accelerated straight towards the back

of a transport truck that was in front of me.

I had to slam the brakes on like I had.

I had no thank you.

Then I also had someone I was in the fast lane on the highway

in the left lane, the vehicle in front of the vehicle in front of me

slammed its brakes on because it wanted to take a left hand turn

across the median into the other lane.

And it slowed down from like I want to say 100 kilometers an hour

to like 40 or 30 in a very short period of time.

I got a warning from the adaptive cruise flashing collision warning.

It never braked. It never hit the brakes. OK.

That scared me.

I had to slam the brakes on there and actually I didn't stop in time.

I had to slam the brakes on and go into the other lane

and go around the cars that were in front of me.

And I'm lucky there was no traffic beside me.

So that was weird.

I've not had an I've not had an adaptive cruise control system

fail in that manner since that Mach E that I had two or three years ago

that also accelerated into the back of a truck while Blue Cruise was on.

Right.

The other the the other problem I had with it was weather related.

It was more minor and it was more of an annoyance.

But I was in snowy weather and when it snows and weather.

Sorry, when the snow sticks to the front of your vehicle,

it can include a sensor, right?

So the vehicle's parking system and one at one point

it was the parking system and at one point it was the collision monitor.

It gave me a message on the dash saying sensors are blocked.

Features disabled.

Please push this button and hold it to remove this message.

I'm like, OK, I pushed that button to remove the message.

Two seconds later, it's back.

I do it again. Two seconds later, it's back.

It turns out you can't remove the message, which makes no sense

because, A, why offer the chance to get rid of the message

if you can't get rid of the message?

B, there's another icon beside it that's lit up yellow

telling me those systems are inactive.

And C, the message is so big, it takes up 50

percent of the center of the screen on the gauge cluster

and blocks everything behind it.

And it just stays there until you the sensor cleans itself

or like it rains on it or like the next day it's warmer and it's melted.

So that was super annoying.

That is frustrating.

I can't imagine, you know, somebody who's buying,

spending all this money on a on a premium vehicle, facing issues

that are that are this kind of those are serious issues.

Like a car, I mean, to me, when I'm commuting,

I find myself using adaptive cruise control fairly frequently.

And I need to be able to trust it.

If I can't trust it, I can't, like, I don't know.

I wouldn't know the best conditions to do it, right?

It needs to be there has to be a clear reason

to ask you why something would stop working the way.

Oh, exactly. And it's not even we're not even talking

about like a hands free self driving system.

This is just straight up adaptive cruise control, you know,

the least complicated of the cruise controls that that control

that that do like distance between automatically put distance

between you and other vehicles.

So that was very shocking for me.

I can't recall having a similar problem in Alexis in the past

or even a Toyota. Yeah.

And and I will say completely clear weather.

How strange.

So even though with those things happening to you,

do you have the ability to recommend this?

I think so. I think people should drive it.

I think it's a very different experience

from German luxury vehicles of the same size.

And if you're looking for that different experience,

you should go for it.

I don't, especially since it's a hybrid,

something you can't necessarily find as easily in other showrooms.

Price wise, I mean, everything's expensive these days.

I find this vehicle to be expensive,

but the interior reflects at least some of the money you're putting down.

It's it does not come across as disappointing.

And it is a useful vehicle, genuinely useful.

It almost looks like a hot hatch in this F Sport trim.

And I think that's pretty cool.

I I I can't remember the last time I thought the edX was attractive.

I always thought it was fine,

but it was never a vehicle that compelled me to look at it.

And in this Grecian water blue,

it definitely was a looker.

So that all of that surprised me.

Very cool. OK.

Anything else you want to talk about this week?

I don't think so. No.

Well, I would like our listeners to head on over to our website

unnamed automotive podcast dot com.

While you're there, you can subscribe to our podcast

using various buttons on top of the page.

But I would really recommend you check out our previous episodes,

pictures of the cars we've been testing.

And I really like it when people click on the contact form

and fill that out and send us their questions or their feedback

or anything that's going on with them that they want us to hear about.

I we love hearing from our listeners.

You guys are super cool.

You've got the coolest car stories around.

And we love hearing them.

And you can also get in touch with us in other ways.

You can email this email us the old fashioned way Benjamin

at Benjamin hunting dot com.

Or you can sometimes find Sammy and I on Instagram.

I'm at hunting Benjamin and Sammy is at Sammy underscore.

Ha, like you're laughing.

Sammy, you've already spoiled what we're going to be talking about next week.

But do you want to remind everybody?

Yeah, next week, we've got the new Nissan kicks.

I think this is the first time we're talking about the kicks at all.

We're both driving the new generation kicks.

Yeah, we love the old ones so much and the new one is so different.

So make that what you will.

So yeah, you're going to want to hear our thoughts on that for sure.

Yeah. So thank you for listening, everybody.

See you.

Episode 427: 2026 Hyundai Kona, 2026 Lexus NX 350h F Sport

About this episode

Hyundai Celtos

Honda That Honda

Kia Celtos

Kia Kona

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Unnamed Automotive Podcast